"Howstrange it is," whispered Owen Warland to himself, leaning his headupon his hand, "that all my musings, my purposes, my passion for thebeautiful, my consciousness of power to create it,--a finer, more etherealpower, of which this earthly giant can have no conception,--all, all,look so vain and idle whenever my path is crossed by Robert Danforth

If,then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shallhereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragicgraces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, amongthem all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shalltouch that workman's arm with some ethereallight; if I shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous set of sun; thenagainst all mortal critics bear me out in it, thou just spirit ofequality, which hast spread one royal mantle of humanity over all mykind

Inthe light of the tragic event, he could understand everything--herquietness, that calm certitude as if all vexing questions of living hadbeen smoothed out and were gone, and that certain ethereal sweetness about all that she had said and done that had been almost maternal.

Allthese and a variety of other great exploits are, were and will be, thework of fame that mortals desire as a reward and a portion of theimmortality their famous deeds deserve; though we Catholic Christiansand knights-errant look more to that future glory that is everlastingin the ethereal regions of heaven than to thevanity of the fame that is to be acquired in this present transitorylife; a fame that, however long it may last, must after all end withthe world itself, which has its own appointed end.

Itlooks, and is, as evanescent as a dream; and yet, in its rustic networkof boughs, it has somehow enclosed a hint of spiritual beauty, and hasbecome a true emblem of the subtile and ethereal mind that planned it.

Thesea was roaring hollowly in the distance, the fields were bare andsere, scarfed with golden rod, the brook valley below Green Gablesoverflowed with asters of ethereal purple, andthe Lake of Shining Waters was blue -- blue -- blue; not the changefulblue of spring, nor the pale azure of summer, but a clear, steadfast,serene blue, as if the water were past all moods and tenses of emotionand had settled down to a tranquility unbroken by fickle dreams.

Still, her youthful and etherealappearance, her timid manner, the charm of her sensitive voice andeyes, the very many respects in which she had interested him out of herown individuality, and the strong difference between herself and thoseabout her, were not in unison, and were determined not to be in unison,with this newly presented idea.

Atleast, Bella no sooner stepped ashore than she took Mr John Rokesmith'sarm, without evincing surprise, and the two walked away together withan ethereal air of happiness which, as it were, wafted up from the earth and drew after them a gruff and glum old pensioner to see it out.

Imagine her dismay, on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet whose lines suggested an etherealbeing fed on `spirit, fire, and dew', to behold him devouring hissupper with an ardor which flushed his intellectual countenance.

When a lady, in a delicate and costly summer garb, with a floating veil and gracefully swaying gown, and, altogether, an ethereallightness that made you look at her beautifully slippered feet, to seewhether she trod on the dust or floated in the air,--when such a visionhappened to pass through this retired street, leaving it tenderly anddelusively fragrant with her passage, as if a bouquet of tea-roses hadbeen borne along, --then again, it is to be feared, old Hepzibah'sscowl could no longer vindicate itself entirely on the plea ofnear-sightedness.